Chapter Case 15

Selecting Kanton Company's Financing Strategy and Unsecured Short-Term Borrowing Arrangement

Morton Mercado, the CFO of Kanton Company, carefully developed the estimates of the firms total funds requirements for the coming year. These are shown in the following table.

Month	Total funds	Month	Total funds
January	$1,000,000	July	$6,000,000
February	1,000,000	August	5,000,000
March	2,000,000	September	5,000,000
April	3,000,000	October	4,000,000
May	5,000,000	November	2,000,000
June	7,000,000	December	1,000,000

In addition, Morton expects short-term financing costs of about 10% and long-term financing costs of about 14% during that period. He developed the three possible financing strategies that follow:

Strategy 1Aggressive: Finance seasonal needs with short-term funds and permanent needs with long-term funds.

Strategy 2Conservative: Finance an amount equal to the peak need with long-term funds and use short-term funds only in an emergency.

Strategy 3Tradeoff: Finance $3,000,000 with long-term funds and finance the remaining funds requirements with short-term funds.

Using the data on the firms total funds requirements, Morton estimated the average annual short-term and long-term financing requirements for each strategy in the coming year, as shown in the following table.

	Average annual financing
	Strategy 1	Strategy 2	Strategy 3
Type of financing	(aggressive)	(conservative)	(tradeoff)
Short-term	$2,500,000	$ 0	$1,666,667
Long-term	1,000,000	7,000,000	3,000,000

To ensure that, along with spontaneous financing from accounts payable and accruals, adequate short-term financing will be available, Morton plans to establish an unsecured short-term borrowing arrangement with its local bank, Third National. The bank has offered either a line-of-credit agreement or a revolving credit agreement. Third National's terms for a line of credit are an interest rate of 2.50% above the prime rate, and the borrowing must be reduced to zero for a 30-day period during the year. On an equivalent revolving credit agreement, the interest rate would be 3% above prime with a commitment fee of 0.50% on the average unused balance. Under both loans, a compensating balance equal to 20% of the amount borrowed would be required. The prime rate is currently 7%. Both the line-of-credit agreement and the revolving credit agreement would have borrowing limits of $1,000,000. For purposes of his analysis, Morton estimates that Kanton will borrow $600,000 on the average during the year, regardless of which financing strategy and loan arrangement it chooses. (Note: Assume a 365-day year.)

To Do:

Determine the total annual cost of each of the three possible financing strategies.

Assuming that the firm expects its current assets to total $4 million throughout the year, determine the average amount of net working capital under each financing strategy. (Hint: Current liabilities equal average short-term financing.)

Using the net working capital found in part b as a measure of risk, discuss the profitabilityrisk tradeoff associated with each financing strategy. Which strategy would you recommend to Morton Mercado for Kanton Company? Why?

(Parts D. and E. are unrelated to your answers in A., B., and C. above.)

Find the effective annual rate under:

The line-of-credit agreement.

The revolving credit agreement. (Hint: Find the ratio of the dollars that the firm will pay in interest and commitment fees to the dollars that the firm will effectively have use of.)

If the firm does expect to borrow an average of $600,000, which borrowing arrangement would you recommend to Kanton? Explain why.